


Method of Last Resort

by wyntera



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 08:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8971633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyntera/pseuds/wyntera
Summary: McHanzo Week Day 6 Prompt: Ultimate Swap
Hanzo did not see the point of learning to use Deadeye. Until he did.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the characters from Hurbis_and_Crafts story Points on a Circle, which I highly recommend. This is just one interpretation of how Deadeye could work, still kept purposefully vague for mysterious cowboy reasons.

McCree teaches Hanzo how to use Deadeye in July.

It is not what Hanzo expected to be doing on such a sweltering day. In fact, he was meant to be taking a few days off after a grueling solo mission that had left scratches all along his arms and legs from running through heavy vegetation in a daring escape. He had even dove from a cliff into a freezing river. It would have been impressive enough for film if anyone had been there to see it. The rest was well-earned and for once he felt no guilt in enjoying some quiet time with his boyfriend while the others took care of business for a while.

He planned to catch up on his reading, take his time to savor his meals, and maybe meet up with Genji so Udon, Soba, and Egg could have a playdate down by the water. Instead, Jesse sends notice through Athena that his presence is requested at the practice range. An oddly delivered request but not unheard of, and Hanzo always enjoys his and Jesse’s little competitions, so he goes happily.

He is not expecting Jesse to be waiting on him, standing stiff and formal, with Soba poised and still on the bench nearby. That in and of itself is cause for concern. Ever since Soba relocated to Jesse’s skin and shifted color to a bright red, the dragon has been much more lively and playful. Very McCree.

His declaration of intent overshadows anything else.

“What?” Hanzo asks, blinking in confusion.

“I’ve been thinkin’ long and hard about this,” Jesse says, oddly grim and determined. “And I think it’s time.”

Hanzo stares at him for a moment, then shakes his head dismissively. “I am not going to learn how to wield Deadeye.”

McCree’s frown deepens. “Why not?”

“It would make no sense. I do not need to learn something for a gun when I rarely carry one.”

“You do sometimes, though.”

“But not enough to warrant it. I have my bow, and that is what I prefer.”

“I ain’t certain you can’t use it with your bow. Not like I ever tried it myself, so there ain’t no harm in givin; it a go.”

“Be that as it may, I have no reason to learn. Udon will come when I call. He will be far more effective than trying something I am unfamiliar with.”

If Hanzo was paying attention, he would feel the way Udon shifts uncomfortably beneath his skin, or the warning whispers just on the edge of his mind. But he is too busy listening to Jesse argue with him to notice. “You won’t be unfamiliar once you learn.”

“Still, I have Udon to protect me, just as Soba now protects you. They are much easier to summon than--”

_ “Hanzo.”  _

His name is sharp on Jesse’s tongue and Hanzo falls silent, taken aback. Jesse clenches the muscles in his jaw, and both hands tighten into fists at his sides before he visibly forces himself to relax his fingers. It does nothing to ease the hard line of his shoulders. He looks like he does not know what to say, words clogged in his throat.

He realizes, belatedly, that Jesse is incredibly serious. Perhaps more serious than Hanzo has ever seen him. And now, thanks to his resistance, verging on angry. He has made a crucial misstep here. Hanzo sets down his bow and quiver on one of the benches and ventures forward, worry etched into his features. From his arm Udon silently emerges, his long thin body sliding like water down to the floor and over to join his brother.

“Jesse,” Hanzo says, gentler. “What is this? What is wrong?”

“You...you were hurt,” he says.

Hanzo nearly laughs. Nearly, but he is not fool enough to think that would go over well right now, no matter what is going through Jesse’s head. “We get hurt all the time.”

“I know that,” Jesse huffs. “But I wasn’t there. No one was there. It was just you and you didn’t have anyone to have your back. I couldn’t protect you and you got hurt, and it could’ve been a lot worse--”

“But it was not a lot worse,” Hanzo tries, taking another step closer. “It is just a few cuts and scrapes, nothing--”

“And next time it could be your life,” Jesse snaps, then grimaces knowing he is losing his temper and doing a poor job of explaining himself.

“But, Jesse, I was not alone. Udon was with me. He is always with me.”

“You don’t know if he’ll always be there.”

Hanzo’s mouth opens and closes a moment, shocked. Since Udon and Soba linked themselves to Hanzo, they have never  _ not  _ been there. Their presence is a constant; the idea that they could not be with him is as unfathomable as living without his own heart. “I think you are mistaken. The dragons are a part of me.”

“Well, that’s a nice sentiment, but Soba agrees with me,” Jesse says, hitching his head in the direction of the bench. The dragons have curled to loosely drape over the wood slats, but when Soba hears his name he raises his head and chirps helpfully. “And he thinks you need to learn this just as much as I think it.”

“But, why? I do not understand, why do you suddenly want me to--”

Jesse finally bridges the gap between them and settles his broad hands on Hanzo’s shoulders. The soft sigh that Jesse releases, fear and resignation rolled up and expelled, causes the words to die in Hanzo’s throat. He never wants to hear Jesse make that sound. “I know I can’t be there every mission,” his low voice drawls. “No matter how much I want to be, I just can’t. But you gave me Soba. You loved me enough to give me this part of yourself that--I don’t know if you’ll ever realize how humbled that makes me. And I love you and want to protect you, just as much as you protect me. This is what I got to give to you.” He squeezes his hands, thumbs stroking up the sides of Hanzo’s neck. “Please, darlin’, let me do this for you.”

Only Jesse would see teaching his boyfriend a deadly and dangerous art as an act of love. Good thing Hanzo is just the sort of man that eats that sort of thing up. Hanzo nearly melts at the sweetness of it, reaching up and covering Jesse’s hands with his own. “You could have just said so,” he says, smiling slowly.

“I was nervous,” Jesse replies, leaning in and kissing first Hanzo’s forehead, then his nose, and finally giving some attention to his lips. “Sorry,” he murmurs.

In hindsight, Hanzo should have realized and never dismissed the idea to begin with. This is important to McCree, always has been and always will be. And even though he doubts it will ever be of any use to him, Jesse has done a lot to make Hanzo happy. He can at least make the effort in return. “Alright,” Hanzo says. “I will learn, if that is what you want.”

“That’s all I ask, sweetheart.” The smile he presses into Hanzo’s cheek dispels the lingering tension, and he pops another loud kiss there before stepping back. “I’m a little nervous. I ain’t never taught anyone this before. Didn’t think I’d ever find someone I felt comfortable enough teachin’ it to.”

“Who taught you?” Hanzo asks.

“Ana Amari,” he replies, making Hanzo startled anew. McCree is full of surprises today. “Taught me everything I needed to know. I’m the only one she ever taught it to, that I know of. She was nervous back then, too.”

“I would have thought Fareeha…?”

“Ain’t exactly the sort of thing that benefits anyone other than sharpshooters,” Jesse says. “Fareeha is a’ight with a gun, but she prefers bigger artillery. Don’t need Deadeye when you ain’t precision aiming. After we talked about how you do it, she said she wasn’t interested anyway.”

“She turned it down?” Hanzo asks. He is not surprised that Jesse would have taught her. They are like brother and sister, most days.

“It ain’t the easiest thing to do. Takes a lot out of you, I’ll tell you what. After the first few times I did it I was shakin’ like a leaf and Ana had to drag me back to headquarters.”

This is sounding more and more daunting by the second. “And you think I will be able to handle it.”

“You’re strong,” Jesse nods, far more confident than Hanzo feels at the moment. “I’ll be right here with you. You trust me, right?” As he says it he pulls Peacemaker from her holster and turns the gun around, offering it to Hanzo.

Jesse wants him to use Peacemaker. If Hanzo had any doubt of Jesse’s sincerity, it gets dashed out by that act alone. Hanzo slides his hand around the grip and takes the gun’s weight. “Of course.”

“A’ight, let’s get started.”

 

\---

 

Hanzo learns. By the end of their lesson, he wants nothing more than to forget that he knows. Jesse describing it to him made Hanzo want to wrap the other man in his arms and never make him use that horrible ability again. Telling Jesse that had only made the other man smile a sad knowing smile. “It gets easier,” he said. Hanzo was not sure if that was the truth or a nice lie.

That night as Jesse sleeps, Hanzo tightens his hold and swears he will never use it unless he has no other choice.

He still does not know what it will feel like personally. After all, you need live targets for that.

 

\---

 

McCree gets captured in December.

It is not Talon. Not refined enough, not professional enough. It is some ragtag bounty hunter group that has had their eye on McCree for some time and were only looking for an opportunity when he was alone and unaware. Turns out the bounty on Jesse’s head is higher with Talon than with anyone else. Athena intercepts communications between the two groups and the plans for an exchange. That meeting is their best bet of getting Jesse back alive. Hanzo knows that once he is turned over to Talon, the chances of recovering him in one piece drop to nearly nothing.

He keeps wondering why Soba has not managed to get him out of this, and what exactly that means about Jesse’s health.

The exchange happens under a bridge in an abandoned part of some no-name town, industrial buildings all around and fog lit up by the yellow acid glow of streetlights. Hanzo’s job is to retrieve McCree and everyone else is to act as distraction. It is just as well; if they had asked anything else of him he would have abandoned that the moment he set sight on his missing lover.

Jesse is injured. That is the first thing Hanzo registers. He is not walking right, favoring one leg, and his movements are uncoordinated. Concussion is likely. His prosthetic is gone, as is his gun and holster and flashbangs and everything except his underclothes. He must be freezing in this winter air. Hanzo wagers all his things are in the bag that one of the ringleader’s lackeys is holding. It gets confirmed when the bag is passed over to Reaper, who pulls out Peacekeeper to give it a once over before dropping it back in the sack.

He says something to Jesse too low for Hanzo to hear, but he can see Jesse spit in Reaper’s direction. Still lucid enough to have fight in him. However Reaper would have reacted to that Hanzo never finds out because the signal comes over the comms and he takes off like lightning.

The fight is messy. He knew it would be difficult trying to get Jesse out of a hornet’s nest like that, but he thought if he was swift enough they could make it work. Things go wrong almost immediately. Jesse gets struck in the eyes within moments by something that flashes bright, possibly one of his own flashbangs used against him, and his screams rip at Hanzo and break his concentration. He finally gets the opportunity to swoop in and grab Jesse by the arm, but Jesse’s initial reaction is to fight. “It’s me!” Hanzo shouts, gripping him tight so he cannot take another swing. “It’s me, Jesse!”

“Han--” he croaks, but that confirmation is good enough. He snags the bag of Jesse’s belongings from the ground where Reaper dropped it and starts dragging him toward the warehouse where the carrier is hidden, shotgun blasts littering the ground around them.

Jesse’s feet trip every few steps, and he is in obvious pain, but Hanzo cannot let him stop. He cannot even take the weight for him, too busy shooting back at their pursuers. He picks them off, one by one, but they just keep coming around every corner. The others must be close behind, right? Where are they? He can still hear the fighting in the distance, vicious with gunfire and screaming. He hopes the others are taking care of--

Searing pain in his back registers before the report of the gunshot. He chokes on his own air, thinking that this is it, this is how they die, but the pain dies down almost immediately. It still hurts, and he reaches back to find something protruding from his back. He yanks it out to find a barbed needle and an empty vial attached.

Fear pushes him forward. They clear the side of a warehouse and McCree stumbles into the wall, gasping for air. “Han? You jerked--were you shot? Are you hurt?”

“They injected me,” he hisses, gripping the vial hard. You did not want to get injected by anyone, but Talon was number one on that list. “I don’t know with what.”

“Suppressor,” Jesse says, sliding against the metal siding even as he tries to stand up straight. “They injected me, too.”

“For what?” Hanzo asks, but even as he speaks it dawns on him. He cannot feel Udon. The presence that he cannot remember ever not being there, is gone. His eyes widen and he grabs his arm instinctively. “Udon?” he asks out loud, even as he cries internally for his companion. But he gets nothing but silence in return.

“Can’t feel Soba,” Jesse slurs, jerking Hanzo’s attention back to the injured man. He reaches blindly out for where he thinks the archer is. “Couldn’t...couldn’t call for him. Han--gimme m’gun…”

“You are in no condition to fight,” Hanzo says, quickly wrapping an arm around Jesse’s waist and throwing Jesse’s one good arm over his shoulder and ignoring the pained cry it elicits. If he has to carry the man to the carrier, he will. “Come on, Jesse, I need you to walk. We have to get out of here.”

Much to his horror, as the words are coming out of his mouth he sees a group of Talon operatives round the corner from the direction they need to head, catching sight of the two injured men. Thinking quickly, Hanzo hauls Jesse up and runs them through the half-open doorway of one of the abandoned buildings. Inside there is little cover but he makes do with what they have, pushing Jesse down behind a crate and taking aim with his bow at the open door.

He is woefully short on arrows. With each draw he cries out, “ _ Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau! _ ” But even though every shot fires straight and true, it is just an arrow. His voice nearly cracks in desperation as he sends the last projectile flying.

Panic is truly setting in now, and Hanzo scrambles for something, anything to use. His desperation has him tearing open the bag of Jesse’s belongings and dumping them out on the floor. The serape covers everything else and he shoves it aside.

_ Peacekeeper. _

She sits gleaming on the pile like she has been waiting for him all along.

He grabs the gun and makes sure its loaded, then a flashbang for good measure. “Hanzo?” Jesse asks, still groggy but aware enough to know something is very wrong.

“Stay here,” Hanzo says, gripping both items in his hands. “I’ll protect you.”

Hanzo does not wait for an answer. The flashbang gets thrown over the crate first, masking his movements as he darts out across the floor and away from Jesse. If something happens to him, then maybe the others will find McCree before Talon. Beyond that it is out of his hands.

The lesson from six months ago comes back to him.

_ Square your shoulders; face death head-on. _

_ Relax your grip; your weapon knows what to do. _

_ Listen to your breathing; it’s just a different kind of meditation. _

_ Steady, steady, steady. _

Hanzo is scared. Terrified. He does not want to do this. He wants the safety of his bow, of his dragons, of his own abilities. Not this ancient technique that rends and ravages the wielder. But Jesse needs him. And he would do anything for him.

The barrel of a gun emerges from around the doorframe, and Hanzo’s world grays out.

 

\---

 

_ The thing about Deadeye is, you have to mean it. It’s easy to forget that we’re killin’ people, Hanzo. We see them as targets, enemies, but they’re men and women and omnics, just like you and me. They may not be good men, but they got friends. They got family. They mean somethin’ to somebody. Deadeye is about honorin’ that, in its own way. You have to feel that...sorrow, that their death is gonna cause. You have to take the weight of all that on yourself. You have to own it. There’s no hidin’ in the shadows. It hurts, not gonna lie. Not something physical, but...on the inside. Makes your chest feel like it might cave in, and you want it to, because then it won’t hurt anymore. _

_ But you keep going, cause it’s them or you. And you ain’t dying today. _

 

\---

 

McCree wakes up in December, two days later.

Sunlight filters through the open window coverings, weak and pale but there. The infirmary is sparsely decorated with tinsel and red bows, but only enough to qualify the place as ‘decorated.’ Angela loves the holiday season but this is still a place of health and safety, and her professionalism trumps the holiday spirit.

Hanzo watches as Jesse comes to wakefulness in slow steps. He can practically read the realizations as his boyfriend’s face registers each hurt: the muffled soreness of his ankle (twisted) and ribs (two cracked, three bruised), the absence of weight on his left arm (prosthetic heavily damaged and currently being repaired), his eyes (light burns on the skin around them, no damage to the eyes themselves thanks to Angela’s quick healing), and the fuzziness in his head that threatens to throb like a hangover (concussion and lingering effects from the drugs in his system.) Most importantly appears to be the coating of slime inside his mouth because Jesse smacks his lips before his eyes fully open, nose wrinkling in distaste. Hanzo is there with a cup and straw before Jesse registers that he is even in the room and slurps down as much as he can without choking.

“How are you feeling?” Hanzo asks softly, carding his fingers through Jesse’s hair. He washed it himself, yesterday, unable to stand seeing it lying limp and dirty on the pillow.

Jesse has to clear his throat a few times before speaking. “Like I got kidnapped,” he croaks, coughing again and going back for more water.

Hanzo holds the cup steady, wincing when Jesse makes a pained noise trying to sit up and easing him back down once he is done drinking. “Doctor Ziegler is keeping you a few days, just until everything is out of your system and your ribs are tended to. She is working with Lúcio for your treatment. There should be no permanent damage.”

“Good to hear.” He blinks heavy and slow, but Jesse is infamous for hating stays in the infirmary. Once he is awake he will not go back to sleep unless they make him. “Soba?”

That makes the archer smile and he nods toward Jesse’s other side. Curled up next to his hip are both dragons, sleeping in a warm tight knot. “They have not left your side since they returned. It took a day for us to work out an antidote. I am still not sure what they did, but Doctor Ziegler is working on something that should make us immune. Talon must have been planning this for a while.”

Jesse reaches down with his own tattooed right arm and strokes over the dragons with gentle fingers so as not to wake them. He must be feeling the same relief Hanzo did when Udon shimmered to life along his arm once again. Satisfied that they are safe and connected, Jesse looks back at him. “Thanks for comin’ for me, sweetheart.”

“Of course,” Hanzo says, moving to sit on the bed next to him rather than hover above. He rests a hand on Jesse’s stomach and kneads carefully, just enough to relax but not enough to draw attention to his ribs. “I would never leave you to that.”

“My hero,” he chuckles.

Hanzo hesitates a moment, deciding if now is the best time. His worry gets the better of him. “Do you remember anything?”

“Bits and pieces,” Jesse admits. His brown eyes look up to Hanzo, searching. “Things were bad at the end. Something went wrong. What happened?”

“I took care of you,” Hanzo says, sliding his hand up Jesse’s chest and cupping his face. “I did what I had to do. You were not--”

He swallows, throat feeling tight. Jesse frowns, seeing the calm exterior cracking. “Hanzo?”

Hanzo huffs, turning his face away. “You were not going to die that day.”

Jesse understands. “Oh, Hanzo,” he breathes, drawing him down into his arms. They have to be careful of his wounds but Hanzo goes readily, needing the contact. He tucks his face up under Jesse’s chin as if to hide from the world. “Hanzo, baby, I’m so sorry.”

“How do you do it?” Hanzo asks. “How do you do this over and over again? It is torture.”

It takes Jesse a moment to figure out what to say. “You have to remember what you’re doin’ this for. All the lives you’re savin’ by bein’ the one to pull the trigger. Keep the things you love and hold ‘em close and tight.” He gives Hanzo a squeeze as if to illustrate the point. “You and Genji and Angela, Reinhardt and Fareeha, everyone, y’all are my family. I’d take on all the pain in the world if it’d keep you safe.”

“I thought you were strong before, but I never realized how much,” Hanzo whispers, pressing a kiss to the edge of Jesse’s mouth. Jesse turns his head and they share a proper kiss, the faint taste of salt on their lips. “I love you,” he adds, as if Jesse did not know.

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

Hanzo wants to tell Jesse to abandon Deadeye, forget it exists, never rely on its steady otherworldly accuracy again. But he knows that he cannot. Hanzo and Genji were gifted with powerful dragons that come on a whim. Lena can bend the laws of time. Angela can defy death itself. You use the gifts you are given to protect the ones you love. He will just have to make sure that he is always there, someone for Jesse to hold close and tight so he will forget that he is loved in return.


End file.
